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Rh "Why should I know them? They wouldn't please me," she would say to those who ventured to remonstrate, and the answer was unanswerable.

"I can't think how you manage, Hilda, to keep so clear of people," said Madame Mila, enviously. "Now, I get inundated with hosts of the horridest"

"Because you cheapen yourself," said Lady Hilda, very coolly.

"I never could keep people off me," pursued the Comtesse. "When Spiridion had the Embassy in London, it was just the same; I was inundated! It's good nature, I suppose. Certainly, you haven't got too much of that."

Lady Hilda smiled; she thought of those six or eight thousands which had gone for Madame Mila's losses at play.

"Good nature is a very indifferent sort of quality," she answered. "It is compounded of weakness, laziness, and vulgarity. Generally speaking, it is only a desire for popularity, and there is nothing more vulgar than that."

"I don't see that it is vulgar at all," said